


Exotic Birds Do Not Tweet

by shinesurge



Category: Kidd Commander (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Mostly Platonic, Platonic Relationships, does it even matter in this comic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 02:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18111161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinesurge/pseuds/shinesurge
Summary: Everybody Feels Bad! Let's do our nails.





	Exotic Birds Do Not Tweet

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as an angsty Ulrich vignette and the nail polish prompt was intended to be warm and fuzzy but for some reason they ended up together because I have to ruin everything I touch lmao

Ulrich cannot sleep.

He's been secluded in his bunk for what feels like hours, listening to the hum of an engine that isn't really there and to Phineas' breathing. Somewhere else in the ship Agatha is enjoying the new novelty of having time to herself, he guesses, not needing to sleep like the humans. All is well. It is quite possible he has never been as secure as he is at this very second.

But he _aches,_ he hurts for home worse than he can ever remember and it only seems to get worse the longer he stays on the Lucky Noon. He doesn't even know what he misses, he has few pleasant memories of the city and whatever circumstances had miraculously come together to produce them had certainly ceased to exist even before he left. He knows only that he wants for something, and what else can it be?

Phineas stirs in the dark, murmurs fitful nonsense, and Ulrich curses softly. He can't stay here, she'll wake up and she'll ask questions and he. He thinks of a firework he knows, an ugly black puck that expands impossibly when it's held to fire, the tightly compacted components coaxed out and out desperate and unstoppable at the first sign of warmth. he can't stay here, he can't stay

Ulrich pads out of the bedroom and into the hallway's constant light. Should he go to the workshop?

"Noon," he stage whispers. "where is Agatha?"

"Here." In his life Ulrich has run the gamut of humiliating overreactions to being surprised, but for some infuriating reason he doesn't jump when Agatha's voice floats down the hall to meet him, he only feels a frustrated lump materialize in his throat. It _never stops._ Worse, the thing itself only makes him angrier. He feels tears prick the corners of his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Heavy footsteps are approaching behind him.

"Did you need something?" Agatha asks uncertainly. The footsteps stop five or six feet away. Ulrich furiously scrubs at his face and clears his throat before turning around, planning to blame the state of his eyes on sleeplessness.

"What are you doing?" he asks, suddenly aware how odd this is. She's still fully dressed, boots and all; he is in a loose Roulette Rockefeller shirt and flannel pajama pants. She stares him straight in the face, blank, her blues and greys adamant in the wooden hallway. It takes a moment.

"I don't." she starts. "Know what to do with myself."

Ulrich stares too long. Agatha shifts her weight.

"So you're just pacing the ship?" Agatha nods, maybe sheepishly. Ulrich can't tell yet.

"Why are _you_ up? It's late." Agatha asks.

"I do not sleep well." Ulrich says flatly, hurrying them past talking about himself. "You will get used to it, why are-" he stifles a yawn, making a half-hearted attempt at covering his face. "why are you just walking _around?_ You could rest, or. Or read, you can do anything you like. You could ask Noon to provide..." she is still staring, and Ulrich is just starting to think he can see disquiet in her static expression.

"Do you." he weighs his words, unsure how to ask. "Need help?"

"I don't know." Agatha says evenly. She twitches at the word "I", Ulrich notices.

They stare at each other for a moment. Ulrich is completely at a loss, high-centered between his own episode and Agatha potentially having some sort of issue so bizarre she doesn't seem to know how to parse it.

It never stops.

He manages something like a smile that feels more like a grimmace, thinks of algorithms and camera eyes that can see everything. He hopes she doesn't care.

"Would you like to come with me to the workshop?" he asks, trying to sound more energetic than he feels. "We can talk more there, I don't want to wake Phineas." Agatha glances at the door.

"She doesn't have trouble sleeping?"

"Come on," Ulrich says.

* * *

 

Ulrich sits Agatha down in a chair Lucky Noon conjures up, on the wrong side of his work desk sort of in the middle of the floor. It's distinctly roomier than it normally is, because the workshop is built for a single Ulrich-shaped humankind, not two and definitely not for an Agatha-shaped second occupant. But it's cozy for now. Ulrich makes cheerful conversation about needing to organize his already spotless workshop, putters around awkwardly while Agatha sits, staring hard at the floor with her elbows on her knees. She could be a statue.

"Where are Beaufort and Doldrum?" Ulrich asks desperately, holding a jar of gunpowder. Agatha doesn't react, he almost thinks she didn't hear him.

"Galley." she murmurs. There's a twist, in the air, the space; Ulrich jumps and the birds are here now. They hop into Agatha's lap, unperturbed by their sudden arrival, and Ulrich tries very very hard to remain composed. He takes several deep breaths. Agatha's eerie expression doesn't change, but she slowly cages her fingers around Doldrum's feathery form.

"I'm." Ulrich says. He puts his gunpowder down and then he doesn't know what to do. He watches Agatha's hands, weathered false skin over ferocious steel curved so very gently around the bird. Beau is nudging insistently between them, jealous. Blessedly, an idea.

"Would you," Ulrich starts, running his tongue over his lips. "would you like me to paint your nails?"

That's an odd enough suggestion that Agatha does look over at him. Her eyes are still too wide, empty, but he can at least see life whirring somewhere behind them. She seems to consider for a moment, curling inward.

"I don't know if I should." she drones slowly. Her bereft tone, the two of them hiding here so late at night, it reaches into Ulrich's brain and clicks the right switches, and it's so easy to slide back into the habit of tending to someone else. Like a pair of slippers after a day in heels. This is familiar and he wraps himself in it like a costume cloak, smothering everything else.

It is also easy to be angry at the events that led to her sitting nearly catatonic in his workshop, and that emotion is less painful than nebulous despair.

"Why?" Ulrich sneers, already moving for the zipper bag he keeps the polishes in. "Who says?"

Agatha doesn't know what to say to that. Ulrich sits on the right side of the desk and begins unpacking his things. The desktop, like the rest of the room, is painstakingly organized, several stacks of small drawers making places for everything. Most of the surface is covered by a large green cutting mat with white ruled markings, and Ulrich sets each of the bottles neatly inside their own square until around a dozen of them stand rank and file in front of Agatha. She releases Doldrum, who stays exactly where he is, and reaches slowly for the colors. Ulrich has a lot more variety than Agatha would have expected; there are the blues and greens she'd seen before, but there is also pink and purple and silver and

"What if it doesn't come off?" Agatha asks, sounding more curious than concerned. She picks up a vibrant yellow. "My nails are different." Ulrich can't help a little smirk as she hands him the bottle even as she makes excuses.

"I can hardly keep polish on for more than a day, come on." he sets her yellow aside and unscrews the cap on a bottle that looks like it's full of water. He holds the brush in one hand and offers her his other. Agatha's responses are still sluggish, but she leans forward enough to reach Ulrich's hand comfortably.

Ulrich is just steadying the brush over the first nail when Agatha snaps her hand away.

"Oh, wait," she pinches the first knuckle of her middle finger and though he's seen it many times Ulrich can't help feeling a slight shock when the skin of her entire hand comes away like a glove. She does the same with the other and sets the skin carefully aside. Ulrich feels something like embarrassment, thinks of his own ugly ear hidden under his hair, but Agatha seems completely unbothered so he tries to seem unaffected. And why should she be? It's not like _her_ body is defective and broken, the intricacies of her joints don't dredge up pity and whispers when people see them, _other_ people aren't so dense with tension that,

uh,

"basecoat first," Ulrich says, a little too sharply. Agatha keeps her fingers still in his hands, nearly burning holes in the desk with her eyes as she tries to take in every detail of the arcane practice.

"What's it for?" she asks softly.

"Evens out the texture, so the polish goes on smoother." Ulrich answers, moving on to the next nail. "It also helps bond the polish better if your nails produce oils, but" he flicks his eyes up to meet hers and offers a quick smile. "you do not have that issue, I would guess." Agatha shakes her head seriously.

The brushed metal of Agatha's fingernails is pleasant to paint. They're worn, clearly, but they're exactly uniform and each of them is broad enough to work with comfortably. This will look nice when it's finished. Ulrich focuses on the methodical work, quashing his flare of self-loathing in favor of making sure Agatha is comfortable. He finishes the rest of the basecoat in companionable silence while she watches like she'll be tested on the material later.

"Now we let it dry." he says, blowing gently on her hand for good measure. "Try not to smudge it." Agatha moves her hands flat to the tabletop with cartoonishly exaggerated care, keeping her fingers spread apart. She stares at them.

"How long?" she asks. Her voice sounds stronger, almost eager, Ulrich notes with some relief. He picks up the yellow she chose, a fat glass bottle that he can't remember wearing or even buying.

"Not long. I try to get the fast drying stuff when I can." Agatha notices him staring critically at the polish.

"Is that color okay?"

"All of my colors are good," Ulrich rattles off absently. He shrugs and smiles. "I don't think I've ever used this one."

"What's wrong with it?" she thinks. "I've only seen you wear dark colors."

"They suit my clothing better." Agatha looks unsettled.

"Should I. Pick another one." Ulrich shakes his head vehemently, cursing himself for his mistake.

"No, dear, wear whatever you want. They will all look good on you." Agatha winces slightly.

"Mi- Monterey used to call me things like that." she says.

"Dear?" Ulrich asks. Agatha nods. Ulrich reaches for her hand again, checks to see if they're ready for more paint. "I'm sorry, does it bother you?"

"I'm not sure." she says slowly. "It did when he said it but it's nice. When you say it. I like when you call me names. And I like when Phineas calls me pretty lady," Agatha admits, gruff and clumsy but painfully soft. The quiet, uncertain admission is a knife in Ulrich's chest, and it is too easy to feel Bel's fingers between his, and the smell of gunpowder is the residue of stage effects, strong because they are just behind the curtain between the matinee and the evening show.

He dutifully shows none of this inner turmoil, smiling gently down at Agatha's fingers.

"Well, if you change your mind please say something. It is not meant to feel bad, coming from us." Agatha nods. A moment goes by.

"I could call you liebe, instead." Ulrich posits, dipping the brush again.

"What is liebe?"

"It is Deutsch, about the same as dear." he mumbles. "If it would make you think less of old things." he finishes with the color and Agatha smiles, at him or at the polish he isn't sure, but he's glad it's there.

"Sure." Ulrich finds the topcoat, nearly depleted, while she sets her palms to the table again.

"Good. A new word with only nice memories." he sets the bottle down while they wait. "I _hope_ this is nice. I am trying my best."

"It is." she says, like it's an objective fact. The data is in, sir, the algorithms have deduced this is A Nice Time. Ulrich giggles, her happiness relaxing some kind of taut in him, painting him in reflected light like a harvest moon. When he takes her hand again, he presses a kiss to her knuckles.

 


End file.
